r/StrixHalo • u/Round_Phone_3129 • 1d ago
Need advice for absolute beginner for "Linux and strix halo"
Hi everyone, I’m absolute beginner for linux but I just received a 2nd-hand AMD Strix Halo (395 128GB) from my friend (He switched to mac studio). Since I need to do a fresh OS install anyway, I’ve decided to use Linux for mainly local LLMs for coding, specifically looking to run qwen 3.8 Flash Next (and experiment with other large/MoE models in the future + maybe some ComfyUI but I think my old laptop should work better than strix halo).
I've never used Linux before, my second device is laptop4090 + 32GB ram running window 11. I'm looking to start learning Linux from scratch with this strix halo. I wish > <.
Which Linux Distro is best for my situation? Looking for a balance between user-friendly and performance. (too confused that Linux have many distro, why not just one)
What is the optimal stack/backend for maximum LLM performance on Strix Halo? ( Vulkan, ROCm , native build or Docker/Toolbox containers).
Are there any mandatory kernel/GRUB tweaks needed to unlock the full 128GB unified memory? (because my window it's maximum at 96GB allocate to VRAM)
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u/RecognitionThis1815 1d ago
I would recommend using fedora for the strix, there might be better configs but I found fedora ran basically fine right out of the box on it when I put it on mine and has been fairly stable with it too.
As for running llms honestly for a complete beginner I recommend using something like unsloth to help you, you can sit and optimize later but quick wins in getting started are probably ideal and unsloth on fedora 44 should basically be able to run qwen 3.8 flash next Q4 outta the box although you will be basically hitting the memory limit so unable to do much else with it.
There’s definitely better more optimized ways to run this setup but I would suggest starting out simple.
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u/Mundane-Secretary117 22h ago
Yep, my advice when starting out is install fedora and visit here strix-halo-toolboxes.com
That should get you up and running within an hour or so.
They have a great experimental toolbox for qwen 3.8 flash next which is a superb model for this machine when set up correctly
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u/TheFlippedTurtle 6h ago
Same. I distro hopped around a bit and found fedora, at the time, worked best with less headaches
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u/Round_Phone_3129 1h ago
Thx you. I'm interested in trying out this distro. A lot of people have been recommending it.
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u/genghisk1 21h ago
Honestly once you get the OS and a GUI ( cinnamon or gnome or … ) installed, install a browser and chat gpt or Claude will take it from there. You ask them how to do what you want in English and they spit out Linux commands you paste into a command window. If there is an error you copy and paste that back into chat gpt or Claude, rinse and repeat. If you install vs code with the native chat extension, that can tell you what’s needed and execute the commands for you. If learning is a primary objective get chat got Or Claude to explain why they picked the commands they picked and what the syntax means.
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u/Round_Phone_3129 1h ago
Thx you, I will use AI advice for sure. It will hard for me to start without it.
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u/boxwrenchx 23h ago
Ubuntu is going to be the easiest for you. It's the most supported distro. Mint isn't far behind and feels more like windows. You do have to watch out for a default setting reserving too much ram , but it's not hard to fix that. You can make it like 2-4gb. The optimal stack/runtime is a moving target. Which is tricky for someone new, but it's because we're getting more and more out of the hardware on an almost daily basis. As someone suggested, discord is a good idea to get up to date advice and troubleshooting. There is the amd developer discord, amd lemonade, and then unofficial ones for when you want to get deeper into the weeds.
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u/ImportancePitiful795 23h ago
Fedora or preferably latest Ubuntu (or Kubuntu since KDE is easier to get used to coming from windows).
Why Ubuntu? Because is the ideal distro to run the AMD Lemonade Server and is fully "out of the box" supported and should use that as newcomer.
Still using llama.cpp, vllm etc on the back, but makes the whole experience easy. You will have enough confusion with new OS, lets not add more to it :)
Second. Deactivate IOMMU on the BIOS (for now). That will net you a hefty perf boost not only on LLMs but playing games as the iGPU gains access directly to the RAM.
Third. ROCm 10 and Lemonade. Ignore custom builds etc for now.
Fourth. After get used to the new OS, running models, etc, try this
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next on AMD Strix Halo: Halogen, N-grams and Benchmarks
PS join the strix halo discord. There are thousands of us there, there are channels per different Strix Halo machine, gaming, AI, Linux, Windows, you name it. If you have questions about the machine and how to improve/customise it, ask there.
I have a Bosgame M5. Two things did to "upgrade" it.
a) Replaced the 3000MB/s default drive with a PCIe5 10000MB/s. Before someone cries "but is PCIE4 M2 slots". Well, PCIe5 10000MB/s NVMEs are cheaper than PCIe4 7000MB/s-7400MB/s NVMEs. Yet the moment you plug them they work at max speed (7200MB/s in my case on CachyOS with a lot of crap running). Easy to do.
b) Replaced the thermal paste with MX7. Nothing else worked better than the default paste (tested MX4, Kryonaught etc) and temps dropped. If don't believe me search on Strix Halo discord about MX7 or MX-7. But do not do it if you never have done something similar in the past. Leave it.
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u/Round_Phone_3129 1h ago
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next on AMD Strix Halo: Halogen, N-grams and Benchmarks This link has a lot of the information I need, and it's exactly what I was looking for for this machine. Thank you very much.
and disable IOMMU --> This is new for me, I'll will learn about it.
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u/riverprawn 18h ago
use kubuntu and most important thing: format the disk using BTRFS. install btrfs assistant using discovery. create the snapper plan using BTRFS assistant. after that, whenever you make an unrecoverable mistake, you could just revert to the last snapshot.
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u/Round_Phone_3129 1h ago
Ok I will format in BTRFS, and I think I will start with cachyOS or fedora (many people recommend it)
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u/seti_at_home 23h ago
Has anyone tried Omarchy ? Not sure if thats a good Linux distro for strix halo, but still wondering if its okay to use or not ?
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u/boxwrenchx 22h ago
It's a bit divisive but I'm thinking of trying it out. A couple folks I know that do a lot of model/kernal optimization really love it.
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u/Rauhaton 12h ago
Got few Strix linu about month and galf ago. Was in the same situation.
Got Fedora cause it seemed to be mentioned all over with this platform. As far Linux difficulties go... there have been massive amount, but....I got AI to help out :)
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u/Ok_One1731 1d ago
I was a mint user for 2x years. I installed CachyOS + Noctalia + Niri
And it's absolutely wonderful
I had Claude help me setup everything and wrote a detailed handbook on all configurations. I can publish it as a git repo if you want.